Thursday, August 8, 2013

Archie's headed back to TV, but not in a way you'd think

Word came across the news wires earlier this week that Moonscoop, the French studio that produced the last Fantastic Four animated series a few years back, and has the CGI-powered Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch due to debut on The Hub later this year (pushed back from its initial summer launch), has also acquired a license to bring Archie back to television.

However, there's a problem.

The proposed It's Archie! is being shopped at the Cannes Film Festival, and there are those on message boards who believe the series will find an American home, either on The Hub, since it already has Sabrina, or Disney Channel/DisneyXD. Cartoon Network, you might recall, was home to Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, then let that series find another home after it was cancelled, and one would think the studio's approach to the classic characters had something to do with it. Anyway, It's Archie!, according to reports, is another attempt at a pre-teen version of Archie and pals, which Archie Comics & DIC last tried with The New Archies back in the late 80's. But this time, the concept also recalls the last Archie series, 1999's Archie's Weird Mysteries, also produced by DIC, which was a cross between The X-Files & Scooby-Doo. The character designs look like the artists were influenced by Antonio Prohias, the writer-artist who created Spy Vs. Spy for Mad Magazine way back in the day, and don't have the "look" that would get the Archie Comics seal of approval. That's not a good sign.

Granted, it's a long way off, so there's time to do some retooling. Otherwise, it's doomed to fail. Considering that this year marks the 45th anniversary of Archie's Saturday morning debut on CBS, I can see the point of the project, but going with a tween Archie? No thanks.

I wanted to punctuate this with a preview clip of the new Sabrina show, but couldn't find anything on YouTube. Moonscoop does have a website you can check out, though.

The idea behind Secrets of a Teenage Witch, from what I understand, is that Sabrina, again a straight blonde, not platinum, as she originally was, is using her powers to fight evil menaces from another dimension or some such thing.

Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) is the voice of Sabrina this time around. Thanks for writing.

ANOTHER Sabrina series? The earlier animated show was sub par to begin with, the live action version ended ages ago and they want to bring her back again?

Not too sure about preteen Archies - they tend to be a mixed bag (Flintstone Kids, et al). I do like the idea of returning to the Weird Mysteries format because the gang had more to do since their previous outings have primarily been jokes and wacky situations rather than a more solid storyline/format. I am worried about the character designs though.

If it does find its way to the US, I think HUB might be the place for it - they were willing to take Shezow after all! They'd probably want to pair it with the Sabrina series.

My thought exactly. As I noted, the New Archies didn't catch fire back in '87, and was saddled with the lunch-hour death slot on NBC. Given what we know about Moonscoop, though, one can only hope for a miracle.